Mamata Banerjee says Mukul Roy will be next railway minister

Mamata Banerjee has made it clear on Saturday that Mukul Roy will be the next railway minister and will replace Dinesh Trivedi. This is for the first time that Mamata has made her first official media statement over the issue of Dinesh Trivedi's removal ever since the controversy over the removal issue broke out on last Wednesday.

""Mukul Roy is our party's most trusted and old soldier. He will be the new railway minister. His term in the Rajya Sabha will be over in April and we have decided to re-elect him for the second consecutive term from West Bengal,"" Mamata told reporters at the state Assembly. Interestingly, Trinamool Congress has already announced the names of four of its candidates for the March 30 Rajya Sabha elections on last Friday. Roy's name topped the list.

In an interesting development, the railway minister Trivedi on Saturday, has refused to resign on the basis of any verbal order from the party chief Mamata Banerjee. A senior Trinamool Congress MP from West Bengal had contacted Trivedi on Saturday over phone and asked him to resign. But Trivedi had reportedly told the party MP that he will not tender his resignation on the basis of any verbal information from any of the party leaders. It is learnt that Trivedi had told the Trinamool Congress MP to request Mamata Banerjee to send him a written instruction through fax and only then he will resign.

Trinamool Congress MP Kalyan Banerjee had contacted Trivedi over phone on Saturday. Banerjee told ET that ""I have requested Trivedi to resign as our party chief Mamata Banerjee does not want him to continue as the railway minister. But Trivedi has told me that he want a written instruction from Mamata."" Banerjee also claimed that he had told Trivedi that it was unfair on his (Trivedi's) part to seek a written instruction from the party chief. ""I also told him that he did not took oath as the minister on the basis of a written instruction from the party chief,"" Banerjee said.

Meanwhile, a state Congress leader Suvra Ghosh, who is also a close relative of the Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, has collected a nomination paper for the Rajya Sabha elections to be held on March 30. Saturday was the last date for collecting nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha polls. Ghosh's act has added fuel in the bilateral relations of Trinamool Congress and Congress. Trinamool Congress has announced four candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections from West Bengal, making it clear that they will not allow the Congress to win a seat in the Rajya Sabha from the state. But Ghosh on Saturday collected a nomination paper, hinting it very clearly that the Congress might contest the Rajya Sabha elections on its own.

The Congress alone would not be able to win a seat in the Rajya Sabha as the party has 42 MLAs in the West Bengal Assembly. To win a seat in Rajya Sabha a political party needs support of 49 MLAs. But the Congress does not have the required number. May be the Congress is expecting votes from the Left parties. The CPIM and the Left parties have 61 MLAs in the state Assembly and they have just one candidate. If they cast 49 votes for their candidate and sitting CPIM Rajya Sabha MP Tapan Sen, the Left parties will have 12 extra votes which they can cast for any candidates after ensuring the victory of Tapan Sen. Political circles in West Bengal are now guessing whether Left parties will help the Congress to win a seat in the Rajya Sabha from West Bengal by supporting the Congress.